In the old tales, a basilisk is said to be hatched by a cockerel from the egg of a serpent or toad. This gruesome creature can petrify people and creatures with a gaze. After that, the beast can simply stroll up to the poor unfortunate soul and begin to dine without any bother or trouble whatsoever.

Cool! I love that you're handling all of the D&D Monster Manual stuff! I wrote all of them down for further review in my own Castellia thread, but I don't think I'll ever have the time to go through everything . Behirs are one of my favorite "random background monsters", as they don't seem to occupy any particular role in an ecosystem, aren't part of a real-world mythology that I can figure out, and don't have any noticeable relatives... they're just these random-ass multi-limbed electro-monsters with lightning breath .

Heh. I read somewhere or other that Gygax got some of the monsters from random stuff like cheap plastic toys, melted things and such-like.

I'm mostly just plugging methodically away at it, a couple of monsters here and there as time and the muses allow. It's also a fun way to mess with builds I never would have ordinarily.

As far as the random monster thing goes, when you're dealing with a fantasy setting 'A wizard did it' is a valid explanation!

Yeah, I love that story- creating stuff like Rust Monsters & Beholders and whatever from dime-store junk. I kinda wanna do that some time, but it's hard to find random "Ugly Monsters" these days, just unnatural-looking "Chinasaurs" with the sharp teeth no matter what the species is .

The Darkmantle is essentially a cephalopod that evolved to live above the water. It tends to lurk in caverns and other underground places.It's essentially an ambush predator, using it's chameleon like ability to disguise itself as a stalactite or a lump of rock. The Darkmantle is about 4ft long and weighs about 40 pounds.

These beings populate the upper planes and are generally more regal and beautiful than their prime material counterparts. They also come in any color, though they tend towards the metallic colors.Celestial is an inherited template that can be added to any prime material creature. They use the base creature's stats except as noted below. Celestial creatures encountered on the prime material plane gain the extraplanar subtype. Celestial creatures encountered on the prime material plane gain the extraplanar subtype.